Tutorial: what is prompting and how to create great t-shirts with AI

👋 Hey! 

Philip is here, co-founder of Artificial Printer. In this tutorial I'll explain you what is prompting and how to create cool t-shirts with it. 😎 

If you have no idea what is Artificial Printer, please read my short article about us and why we made it.

Let's get onto it!

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If you reading this, you must be wondering what is "prompting" and how it works with Artificial Printer. This tutorial will help you understand how to "prompt" our AI system and create appealing images with it. 

So what is "prompting"?

In my own definition, it is an instruction usually in form of text, that we send to AI systems to receive something back. There are some recommendations on how to prompt Artificial Printer correctly, however there are no strict rules about it. Think of each point below more as an advice to understand quirks of the system, rather than a "no-no". 

1. If you are new creating with AI, try simple things first
For instance, start with prompting something easy and familiar, simple animal prompts always work great, let's try "cat" 


plain ol' cat

Let's try adding something on top of our prompt. How about "cat with wreath"? No problem.


plain ol' cat with wreath!

OK, the world is not just about cats, right? Let's try some dogs instead! How about "dog in wreath in style of van gogh, background of flowers"

Voila, after couple of generations, here it is! 

Main take away: if it's your first time making with AI, don't worry, start simple and build your skill from there! 

2. Do not add "t-shirt" or "design" into your prompt, otherwise you'll have a t-shirt with t-shirt
Unless this is what you really want. All images are automatically applied to a t-shirt.

Adding "design" doesn't really add anything except if it's contextual, for example "interior design". 



Correct way to get abstract design t-shirt is just prompting "abstract" without anything next to it. 



3. Experiment with different styles
Artificial Printer is well-versed in art! It knows many styles, famous painters and genres. 

Let's try Ivan Aivazovsky, famous Armenian-Russian painter. 

Though Ivan was greatest painter of marine art. We still can prompt to get images that don't really have much to do with sea. Although it might be possible that some objects won't be really looking good. For example let's try to make Porsche 911 in style of Ivan Aivazovsky.

I'd say we were lucky the second image came out OK! The underlying problem is that Aivazovsky never painted Porches or any other similar objects. That's why Artificial Printer is struggling with a first image, however there is nothing bad in trying your luck and experimenting! 

By the way here is a useful guide of artists that you might want to replicate

4. Specifying exact text might work, but could be tricky to get 
AI models are still struggling with text so if you want a specific text on your design you might need to work for it. Try adding "with text "your text here"" to your prompt. 


As you can see I successfully prompted design with "Artificial Printer" text on it. However this functionality is still experimental, feel free to try, but don't get too upset if nothing great comes out of it. We are working on improving this feature in near future. 

5. Prompting in English is always better
While we all speak different languages, for better quality of results I recommend prompting in simple English, however it's not discouraged to try and prompting in your native language, but results might come out worse than they would do in English. 

For instance, let my Italian shine: 

"With cats again!" - I promise I'm really a dog person in heart.

6. Artificial Printer is not great for creating branded t-shirts, yet
If you are a small business owner that wants to create a couple of merch t-shirts, we aren't really there yet to do it. I see a lot of people prompting their "business" names and logos into Artificial Printer, but most likely we don't really have your logo, so Artificial Printer will come up with it's own version of it, most likely not what you really want. If you still however would like to order some custom t-shirts with us with your logo, please reach out to us and we can "add" your logo on top of design. 

To sum up: Artificial Printer is all about experimenting. If you are new here — go slow and build your understanding by practicing. By the way, if you are out of ideas, check out my simple "How to make a unique gift with AI on a budget for 5 occasions" guide. 

Now go on and make something! 

Best,
Philip